[Delhi is battling both toxic air and a record surge in coronavirus cases. Doctors and scientists say the combination will have deadly consequences, as exposure to pollution increases the risk of severe respiratory illnesses. Air pollution also makes people more prone to infections, they say.]
The
66-year-old retiree suffers from asthma that is aggravated by the severe
pollution in India’s capital. Now a virus that makes people struggle to breathe
is stalking her family.
Sarkar’s
son and older brother were both infected with the novel coronavirus. Although her son recovered, her brother died
in October. This year is “particularly frightening,” she said.
Delhi
is battling both toxic air and a record surge in coronavirus cases. Doctors and
scientists say the combination will have deadly consequences, as exposure to
pollution increases the risk of severe respiratory illnesses. Air pollution
also makes people more prone to infections, they say.
India
has recorded more than 8.7 million coronavirus cases, second only to the
United States. While fresh cases nationwide have fallen sharply since
September, Delhi is an exception to the trend.
[The
virus is on the march in much of the world. In India, it’s in retreat.]
The
city is adding more than 7,000 cases a day, and that figure is expected
to rise. More than 100 covid-19 deaths were reported in Delhi on Thursday,
a record. Meanwhile, the number of open hospital beds equipped with ventilators
is dwindling.
The
fresh wave of cases comes as Delhiites have thronged markets and malls during
India’s festival season. This past weekend marked the advent of Diwali, a major
Hindu holiday, and public heath experts fear that celebratory gatherings could
spread the virus.
Arvind
Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, appealed to city residents to observe the
festival at home and banned the use of firecrackers, a traditional way of
marking the holiday that also causes a spike in pollution.
The
air quality in greater Delhi, home to 30 million people, has already
deteriorated dramatically. Each autumn, when temperatures fall and wind speeds
drop, a polluted smog settles over the city. Vehicle exhaust, construction
dust, industrial emissions and crop burning in neighboring states all
contribute to the mix.
Delhi
just experienced five straight
days of “hazardous” air quality, according to standards set by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. On Nov. 10, the level of particulate
matter considered most harmful to human health briefly
spiked to 30 times the safe
limit prescribed by the World Health Organization. Such particles can
lodge deep inside the lungs and have been linked to high blood pressure, heart
disease, respiratory infections and cancer.
Researchers
also believe that such
pollutants contribute to a higher risk of death from covid-19. A recent
study by scientists in Europe estimated that 15
percent of covid deaths worldwide could have been avoided if pollution
levels were lower.
Air
pollution leads to “greater vulnerability and less resilience to covid-19,”
Thomas Münzel, a cardiologist and co-author of the paper, said
in a statement.
The
study also hypothesized that air pollution could play a role in spreading
infections: It “seems likely that fine particulates prolong the atmospheric
lifetime of infectious viruses, thus favoring transmission,” the researchers
wrote.
Doctors
in Delhi say the confluence of the pandemic and the bad air is daunting. “It
will be a very difficult winter,” said Davinder Kundra, a pulmonologist at a
private hospital in the city. The situation is “life-threatening.”
Dirty
air inflames the linings of the windpipe and lungs, rendering people more
susceptible to infections of all kinds, said Arvind Kumar, chairman of the
Center for Chest Surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi. A community
heavily affected by pollution will have “a higher chance of contracting covid
and a higher chance of dying of covid.”
The
bad air is also a challenge for those recovering from coronavirus infections.
Ajeet Jain, a doctor at Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital, a major covid
treatment center, said the percentage of patients reporting post-infection
respiratory problems has risen together with the pollution.
“My
advice to them is, ‘Go to a place where the air quality is better,’ ” Jain said. “That is the first and foremost
treatment. Leave this place, at least for a while.”
Some
Delhiites who have contracted the coronavirus say they can feel the pollution
making it worse. Nidhi Sabarwal Arora, 34, is a housewife whose entire family
tested positive for the virus. She was asymptomatic until a day of particularly
bad pollution last week. Then she became feverish.
“I
definitely feel pollution is a culprit,” Arora said. She smelled smoke in her
house, which is close to a major highway, and it seemed as if the air she was
breathing was heavy.
For
people like Sarkar, the retiree, every day of bad air quality is a struggle.
She is coughing badly despite the medication she takes for her asthma. Wearing
a mask is necessary but difficult, and she says the smell of sanitizer can
trigger her condition.
She
would like to be somewhere with cleaner air but doesn’t want to leave family
behind and worries that many Indian cities now grapple with pollution.
“I
often feel like we cannot live here,” Sarkar said, adding: “I do not know where
I can go.”
Read
more
Who
will make coronavirus vaccines for the developing world? India holds the key.
India’s
pollution refugees: People are fleeing Delhi because of the toxic air
Bad
air kills more than a million Indians a year, study says
